YouTube Promoted Videos Get More Exposure
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009Google recently enhanced its YouTube Promoted Video capability. Merchants can now promote their own content in the related video section of an active YouTube page. At this time, most online retailers aren’t taking advantage of YouTube Promoted Videos and may be missing out on a powerful marketing channel.
Before we dive into this topic, let’s back up a step. If you’ve published a video on YouTube before, you may have noticed that you have the ability to enter a description and some keywords that describe your video. When someone searches YouTube for “dancing baby” the video of your adorable two-year-old will show up along with similar videos. Due to its popularity, businesses have been using YouTube to promote their products and services in the hopes of generating business. However, there was no guarantee where and when your video would display, so YouTube came up with YouTube Promoted Videos Ads. Promoted videos operate similar to the Google AdWords program in that you’re able to bid on certain keywords that someone might use when searching YouTube. When your keywords are entered, your video shows up along with any of the organic search results YouTube considers relevant.
YouTube has now taken Promoted Videos a step further. Instead of just displaying the videos on the search results pages, YouTube will now display the promoted videos within the related videos box that is displayed to the right of the video being played. For example, if someone is watching a video on “Golf Training” the related videos may also include a promoted video from an online merchant selling a golf training device. The merchant bid on the term “Golf Training” and now his promoted video displays every time someone includes this term in their search.
Once you have created a video, promoting it is easy. You first create a campaign within your YouTube account by clicking on the “Promote Your Videos with Promoted Video” link. Next, click on “Create New Promotion” and you’ll be guided through the steps of creating your ad such as the title, keywords and bids. This process is very similar to AdWords, so if you have an AdWords account and you are targeting a similar audience, you may be able to speed up the creation process by referencing the information you already have on file within your AdWords account. Once your promotion has been created, YouTube will start promoting the video within a few minutes. While you may be missing a few of the advanced features that AdWords provides you will get all the essentials such as adding additional keywords, pausing and editing your promotion. An additional bonus is that this type of marketing is still relatively new, so your bids may be just a fraction of the cost of what you’re paying on AdWords.
While video marketing is still new for most online merchants its potential is undeniable. For most companies it’s not “if” but “when” will they start using online video to promote their business. One thing is for sure; Google will only continue to add more features to the YouTube Promoted Video arsenal as it looks to further monetize this medium.
Most ecommerce businesses use AdWords to generate traffic. In essence it’s pretty simple – you bid for search terms in Google, your ad appears if someone searches… 
